Unfiltered Story #32424

I was a first-year teacher, and also a first-time father with a son entering his “terrible twos”. Between lesson planning, grading assignments, a new house, and helping deal with our son, I wasn’t getting much sleep, and wasn’t always getting all my work done. One Monday morning, I told the class that I hadn’t yet graded the tests I’d given them the previous Friday; I just didn’t have time.

One student started going off on me, saying that the students are always expected to get everything done, on time, but if a teacher doesn’t do what they’re supposed to do, it’s okay. And he didn’t stop. He kept going on and on about responsibility and obligations, and even though I knew he was right, he was being obnoxious about it and I just didn’t have it in me to deal with it at that point, so I lost it. I told him that we all have times when things aren’t going well, and if you don’t know what someone else is going through, then you should just SHUT THE F*** UP! I was shouting quite loudly by the end, then it was totally silent.

I stepped outside (my classroom was a portable in the parking lot) and stood for a while, enjoying the lightly falling snow, and contemplating my impending change of career. Or at the very least, the stern reprimand I would get following the inevitable phone calls to the program director.

After a few minutes, I stepped back inside and apologized to the class for my outburst and use of inappropriate language, and also to the student for yelling at him. He in turn apologized for going off on me. Then we proceeded with the lesson.

The phone calls never came. In fact, some other students told me later that he’s always been like that, and they’ve been waiting years for some teacher to put him in his place, and I was that teacher. As far as they were concerned, I was some kind of hero. Obviously I wasn’t, but it was strange to think that I gained some respect from my students by doing something completely wrong, inappropriate, and unprofessional.